Air Force UFO files hit the Web

File photo. UFO enthusiast John Greenewald posted the entire collection of 130,000 Air Force UFO documents for the first time last week on his site The Black Vault.

Project Blue Book was launched in 1947 and was over by late 1969, after amassing over 130,000 documents on some 12,618 alleged UFO sightings by military members and civilians.UFO fans rejoice, the UNITED STATES AIR FORCE has declassified files containing information about UFO sightings, related incident reports and other information reported by its agents and employees.BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – A host of files, gathered over a nearly 30-year-span starting in the 1940’s, was just declassified, and has now been put online.Huge news for UFOlogists: nearly 130,000 pages of fully searchable archives, dubbed the Project Blue Book Collection, are now available on truth-seeking website the Black Vault. The files were declassified years ago, but were more or less kept from the public due to the restrictions on viewing: interested parties had to visit the National Archives and view them individiually on 94 spools of microfilm.

Many are lauding this declassification of something that was once the thing of legend as a step in the right direction, but conspiracy theorists continue to bang the same drums. Although all reports from the area were dismissed due to astronomical reasons or insufficient data, one was dismissed based on the description of “Inversion Reflection.” That 1959 Warsaw report dismissed a “reliable” civilian source who said they saw four red and white, bright, star-shaped lights appear the size of a half dollar. While searching through the files (which are daunting in mass) we’ve found more than a few PBB cases that originated in the Houston-area, with some reported to officials at Ellington Air Force Base.

Some were explained away in documentation as merely satellites, planets in the solar system, meteors, balloons, or even merely high-flying jets from the base. The dismissal was given as atmospheric conditions, such as a “superior mirage.” They said they had indications that there was a sharp inversion at around 4,000 feet in the sky.

Most sightings were, in fact, debunked — including a sighting in 1965 at the World’s Fair later that was called “a photographic anomaly” — but 701 cases remain not fully explained in the papers. A UFO expert was able to get the files released through a Freedom of Information Act filing. “There’s a lot of motivation for a lot of different reasons. Out of that total, 701 incidents remain “unidentified.” A University of Colorado report called the “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects” found that “there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles,” according to a 1985 Air Force fact sheet. The said incident involved an agent at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent who reported a “star-like craft that shifted from a bright white color to red and green as it moved erratically in several directions.” You don’t want to judge your team after three or four games into the season, and it’s important not to ride the roller coaster.” — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who is headed to his record sixth Super Bowl after early-season musings that he was no longer effective and should be benched.

They listed witnesses and described — even drew the phenomenon they reported seeing — a bright light with a tail — heading from the west and moving east. The site has records available for browsing by year or keyword; as yet, there are none officially relating to the big daddy of UFO conspiracies: the alleged 1947 spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

That sighting was ultimately dismissed as “Venus.” A witness to a Buffalo UFO event in 1958 filled out a questionnaire about his sighting, in which he depicted a triangular shape which had a jet stream, and was colored orange and yellow. Although East Aurora authorities and East Aurora Mayor said although the signs were funny, they said there was no immediate danger, and someone was playing a practical joke.